Mark's Corner
by Orange.Dreams.4.4.0.8
Summary: They called it My Corner. They always had. Mark/Roger. Rated for Angst, and very, very minor prostitution. I know, I know, that bit has ben done before, but this idea popped into my head, and I had to write it. Review? Thank you!


Authors Note/Disclaimer: I don't own Rent, unfortunately It all belongs to the Genius that is Johnathan Larson

Ok. This is kinda weird, but the idea popped into my mind one day, and my fingers itching have been itching to write it ever since.

Ok. So… The universe this is in…. Rent didn't happen, but all the characters are here, Angel and Mimi are alive and well, ok? Good. Now, Enjoy! (Reviews are fantastic, as usual…)

**Mark's Corner**

**They called it my corner. It always had been. **

**It was the corner where the bus dropped me off once I left Brown University.**

_I was cold, hungry, and alone, but empowered. No more stuffy roommates, no more ridiculous classes, no more stupid seminars. I was jubilant, I was celebrating, I was finally free from conformity! Here I was, on the bohemian side of the big apple, ready to take a bite. Very poetic. See? I'm already fitting in quite nicely here._

_I was gonna make it big, get an apartment on the Upper East Side, become a big shot filmmaker, find a girlfriend, and life would be great. I just knew it; I could feel it in every fiber of my scarf. _

_I just had to start out somewhere. _

**The corner where, after living there for a year, I met Roger.**

_I was cold, hungry, alone, and feeling absolutely everything but empowered. Amazing what a mugging can do to you. Broken bones, bruises, slightly bleeding wounds, and unlimited time to think, before you finally feel like you can stand without expelling whatever might be left in your empty stomach. It gives you time to think, time that might not necessarily be good for your mental health, because, really, thinking about it, life sucked. I had no food, no heat, nothing but me and my camera._

_A few people passed me by, looking at me leaning against the building by my corner. Not a single one stopped, so I figured I didn't look that bad, only felt it. So I sat there, closed my eyes, and tried not to think…_

"_Hey," A voice came from somewhere above me. I opened my eyes a bit. It was dark now. "Hey you!" The voice spoke again, from my level now, close to me._

_Opening my eyes fully, I looked at the blonde god crouched in front of me. I blushed, a reaction I had never been able to suppress, even in childhood. "Me?"_

_The handsome young man, who looked to be about my age, rolled his eyes. "No, the invisible man sitting on your shoulder. Yes you!" I blushed again and straightened up, wincing, nearly doubling over in pain. He put a hand on my shoulder to help steady me, heat emanating from the touch. "You ok?"_

"_Yeah, I'm-ouch-fine." I mumbled, not meeting his eye. He shrugged, moving his hand off my shoulder awkwardly, shifting weight from one foot to the other. _

"_What happened to you?" He asked, eyeing something on my forehead. I moved my fingers there tentatively, and found there to be blood. I hadn't even noticed I'd been cut. _

"_Typical, run-of-the-mill NYC mugging." I brushed it off. He gulped and looked at the ground._

"_I just, wanted to make sure you weren't dead or anything. I've seen you around before and all."_

_I blinked again, my head pounding. "Have you, now?" I looked at him, and he met my gaze, and for some unknown reason, we both laughed. _

"_I'm Roger." He said, extending a hand. I looked at it and grasped it, a smile forming on my face._

"_I'm Mark."_

**The corner I left to move in with Roger, Collins and Benny.**

_I was waiting. Checking the cracked watch on my wrist that somehow, miraculously, still worked, I looked down the street, to see a certain wannabe rock star running towards me._

"_Hey!" Roger looked more excited than usual, and his happiness was contagious, I smiled back._

"_Hey yourself, what's up?" I asked, wondering the source of Roger's excitement._

"_I found an apartment!" He exclaimed. "I'm finally moving off the streets!" I smiled for him, happy, but I felt a loss. I would lose my best friend, my bohemian buddy, the only person I living on the streets with me. The only one I had left._

_Roger must have seen my face fall, because he laughed for a moment before scoffing. "Oh come on, Mark, you honestly think I wouldn't ask you to move in with us? You punk." _

_I jumped up and embraced him, before slowly moving away and asking "Us?"_

_Roger brushed it off. "One of my friends from forever ago, Collins, Tom Collins. He's great. Oh, and this guy I've met a few times, Benny. He's cool."_

_Smiling, I nodded, and walked off with my new roommate._

**The corner where Maureen first kissed me.**

"_Come on Marky!" April, Roger's new girlfriend, sang giddily. "It's one teensy weensy little date. What harm could it possibly do, what have you got to lose?" _

_Tying my scarf around my neck tightly, I counted off the things on my fingers. "My sanity, my honor, my dignity…" _

"_His virginity." Roger snickered from the seat between Collins and April who both laughed. I shot him a look, but let it slide. He was just joking after all. Well, for all Roger knew he was. _

"_But honestly, Mark, I've known Maureen for ages, you and her will get along fine!" She looked at me with her brown eyes, slightly dilated from whatever drinks she and Collins had delved into already. Roger was surprisingly sober. _

_I tried to keep a straight face, but April wouldn't let go. Eventually I caved, rolling my eyes at her, running a hand through my hair. _

"_Fine, ok? One date. One! But you all have to come too!" I called as April squealed, running over to the phone, dialing Maureen's number._

_**_

"_Sounds like some protest!" I laughed along with the rest of the table at the Life Café, smiling at Maureen's tale of her latest performance. _

"_It was, it went really good!" Maureen beamed at any sign of praise. The night was going fairly well. The food was good, Roger and April were having a good time, Collins and the boyfriend that he had brought along seemed to be doing very well, considering the fact that they'd ducked under the table before the drinks had arrived and we hadn't seen them since. _

_And April, surprisingly, was true to her word; Maureen and I were getting along well. Really well. She was funny, outspoken, sweet, and attractive. We'd been having out own conversations on and off the whole night, and had really hit it off._

_Roger, from somewhere down the far end of the table, pointedly yawned loudly. "I think April and I are gonna get going." He said, stretching and jerking his head not so subtly towards Maureen and I's end of the table. April giggled drunkenly and obliged, standing up from the table (with much difficulty) and latched onto Roger's arm as the two left with half waves and laughter._

_Collins and his boyfriend emerged, agreeing that it was getting late, and that they were going to head back to the boyfriend's place, both giggling profusely as they exited. _

_I looked at Maureen, who had blushed a little bit, looking at the now very empty table. Pulling out my wallet, I laid a few bills down on the table, money from odd jobs I'd worked lately, and then offered my hand to Maureen as she stood. She smiled and accepted my offering, and we exited, hand in hand._

_The cold hit us as we opened the door, early December snow blowing at us, flying everywhere. Instinctively, she moved closer to me and I moved my arm around her waist, walking towards her apartment about two blocks away._

_As we approached her apartment, I realized that it was only a few houses down from my corner, and I wondered why I had never seen her before. Maybe I had never been looking._

_She stopped right on the corner, under the streetlight, and looked at me._

"_I had a great time tonight, Mark, thank you." She said, cheeks pink from the cold. I looked at my feet, blushing, again._

"_No problem. I had a great time too." I looked at her, and she was smiling at me, her dark eyes shining, and then before I knew what was happening, our lips were welded together._

_It wasn't exceedingly romantic, but it wasn't wanton or needy either. It was just right, and I had an image of Goldilocks run through my mind, you know, the part with the porridge, not too hot, not to cold, but just right._

_Eventually, I concentrated back on kissing her, and I realized I liked the feeling of being so close to someone, of having her hands in my hair, and my arms around her waist. But, like all good things, it came to an end. She smiled again, and with that, thanked me and walked back to her apartment, leaving me dazed, a little breathless, and happy._

**The corner where Maureen dumped me.**

"_We should talk." The three words every guy fears, the three words no guy wants to hear, and the three words Maureen just said to me._

"_Sure." I replied, nonchalantly. "About what?" We stopped a few feet short of her apartment door._

"_Us." She said, and then she put her hand on my arm, in a sort of gesture of comfort the brought none at all._

_"Alright. What's up?" I asked. November wind nipped around us as she slowly formed her words._

_"I think we should see other people." She said it quick, like pulling off a Band-Aid. She looked like she'd been planning this discussion over and over in her head, but I was left speechless, wondering what in the world I could have done._

_"Why?" I said calmly, detaching, turning this into facts. Maureen was dumping me. There was a reason why. I had done something wrong._

_"I… I met someone. Someone else." She looked away from me, down at her boots, giving me a moment to process._

_"Who?" She was dumping me. I had done nothing. She met someone else. It was her fault._

_"It's not important, really it-" Maureen's speech was getting quicker, like it does when she's done something wrong, guiltily._

_"Maureen. Who is it?" My tone was bitter, harsh. Jumping, a little, she muttered for a moment, before looking up at me, straight in the eye._

_"Her name's Joanne. She's a lawyer." And then she walked away. Did Maureen just tell me she was a lesbian? _

_I reached out a hand to touch her, but she'd already gone, my hand only grasping the air where she had stood._

_It was a moment later that I realized I was alone, on my corner again._

**The corner where Roger told me he was HIV Positive.**

_There were no words that could do anything to help him. I mean, really, how do you watch your girlfriend die, by her own hand? You didn't, you couldn't._

_We had been home when April slit her wrists. Slit her wrists, it sounds so morbid, so depressing, so everything that wasn't April. April was sunshine, and music, and roger's laugh, and everything that made things ok again. _

_Now April was dead._

_Dead, leaving us nothing but that fucking post it note. "We've got AIDS.". That's all it said. _

_No Goodbyes, no, they weren't April's forte. _

_No' I Love You's, the words she rarely said to anyone, even Roger. _

_No I'm Sorry. What would she have to be sorry for? For leaving us, for infecting Roger, for not letting us help her?_

_There was nothing I could say to Roger to make him feel any better. He'd barely spoken two words since her death, three weeks ago. I tried to tell him that it wasn't his fault, that 75% of people who commit suicide show almost no sign of depression, that everything will be ok. I lied through my teeth to him, telling him that everything would be alright, and that he might not be HIV positive. He'd just looked at me then walked away._

_And here we were now, walking back from the clinic, Roger's blood results crumpled into a ball in his fist, hands shaking. He hadn't said a word yet, not telling me what I already knew, what the official result was._

_We passed my corner, and I stopped, as he did beside me. I couldn't do this. I hated silence. I needed speech, I needed facts, I needed solidarity, something to support me, something real beneath me, or else I might fall._

_"Well?" I asked, my tone firm. There was no room for discussion here._

_Roger turned away, but I caught his shoulder and forced him to look at me. "Fuck off." He hissed, but I moved in front of him. _

_"No, Rog, enough is enough. I can't do this anymore. You can't do this to yourself anymore. No." _

_"I'm positive!" He spoke, quickly, before his voice turned into a yell. "Is that what you wanted to hear, because I am! Happy now? I'm positive, H I Fucking V positive, okay?!" He screamed at me, eyes widening, voice cracking. Instinctively, I reached out a hand to touch his arm, to let him know that it was ok to cry, to show emotion._

_I didn't even see it coming, but when Roger's fist collided with my chin, I felt it, and fell backwards onto the sidewalk, back hitting the streetlight. Roger glared down at me, before his stone face cracking, and he hunched over, tears pouring down his cheek._

_Standing quickly, I took over my job as The Rock, the one who was always there to rely on, the one everyone could count on. I embraced him as he collapsed, leaving me to support both of us, as usual._

_"I'm Positive." He said again, voice muffled, his lips moving against my shoulder. "Oh, god, Mark, I'm positive." And with that Roger broke down completely, muttering phrases neither of us wanted to hear, and that neither of us could understand. _

**The corner where I fell in love with Roger.**

_He was finally out of the house, that was my only thought. He was finally realizing there was life outside April. He was finally healing. _

_Roger, Collins, Angel, his new boyfriend, and I were coming back from Life Support, and for once, no one thought anything of HIV, of low T-Cells, anything like that. That was what Life Support was for. This, talking, laughing with friends, this was the here and now that we all were learning to live in._

_I looked over at Roger, and saw him laughing, his face breaking into a grin, forgetting how hard it must have been for him to finally be out of the loft. A stray strand of hair was hanging in his face, blocking part of his green eyes from me, and instinctively, I reached over to brush it away. _

_He stopped for a moment, and looked at me inquisitively, almost but not quite leaning into my fingertips. My heart flipped, I stopped for a moment, before beginning to move my hand away from his face._

_Quickly, he grabbed my wrist, and held it to his cheek for a moment longer, before dropping our linked arms to our sides, his grip on my wrist loosening, and falling down to hold my hand._

_I bit my lip, not letting a smile grace my lips just yet, still waiting to wake up, for him to look on at me in disgust and wipe his hands across his pant let, getting any remnants of Me off of him. _

_But it never came. Roger rolled his eyes gently at me, bumped my shoulder with his, and squeezed my hand reassuringly. It took a moment, but eventually I looked back at him, a genuine smile on my lips for the first time in forever._

**The corner where I would do anything to help Roger.**

_The term My Corner really fell into play lately. Ironic, even, that I had considered this My Corner long before it had some to this. Everyone else knew to stay away, that this was my business area, my turf. This is where I would do anything. Anything to help Roger._

_Times were bad, worse then they had been before. Roger was getting sicker, and Buzzline wasn't paying enough to make ends meet. We were trying, but we were getting desperate. I was getting desperate. And desperate times call for desperate measures._

_A car approached. No words were exchanged. He held out a large stack of folded bills, and I stepped into the car, where the seats were stained, and the man driving eyed me like a piece of meat, which, I supposed, was all he was paying me to be._

_We reached his apartment, and a dark room awaited us. Keeping his voice low, he led me to the bed, where I was promptly forced onto it. After that it was all a blur of sloppy kisses on the neck, bite marks leading down to my waistline, nail marks on my back._

_I shut down. No moans escaped my lips, no cries, whether they be of pain or pleasure, nothing. I managed to erase my mind of everything._

_Eventually it ended. The man handed me the stack of bills, and I left, retreating to the bitter cold outside, leaving my face stinging. I promptly turned into an alley and became violently sick._

_Once my stomach had stopped churning, I pulled out the stack of bills from my jacket, and counted. Enough for Roger's AZT. Enough for Roger's food. Enough to store away for hospital bills, god forbid we ever needed it._

_The thought of "It's for Roger." kept me sane, most of the times. But sometimes I had to break down._

_But it was for Roger, I would tell myself when emotions finally began showing. It's for Roger. And I would do anything for Roger, anything._

**The corner where Roger left me.**

_I was retching in the alleyway when he found me. I don't know how long he'd been watching, or waiting, but at the moment, it didn't matter. I finished shaking, and stood, making to tuck the money away in my coat pocket, when he emerged rather cinematically from the street, shadows falling across his face, eyes livid._

_"This is what you're doing?" He asked, voice shaking with barely suppressed rage. "You're a whore now?" _

_Immediately, I went to turn away, feeling like I was going to be sick again, but Roger grabbed my arm and pulled me to face him. He reached for the stack of bills in my pocket, and I struggled with him for a moment, before he had gotten a hold of the money and had then pushed me a few steps away._

_"This is what you're doing." He reiterated, the words now forming a statement, not a question. He threw the money on the ground, it skirting away from me in the wind. "You're a fucking whore, Mark!" He screamed now, and I cringed, terrified of him. "What the fuck is wrong with you?" He was in my face now, and I could smell the peppermint and smoke on his breath, hear the betrayal in his voice, see the anger in his eyes._

_A little voice in my head answered him. Everything, everything was wrong with me. I was a fucked up piece of shit who didn't deserve you, who couldn't do anything to help you._

_"Why, Mark? Why would you go and do something this fucking idiotic, something this fucking moronic?" For you. Because you need money. You need AZT. You need food. You need warmth. You need more time. You need everything, but you have so little. _

_"I can't-I can't deal with this, not now." But I did it for you. "I just- I can't- not you, I can't- Just-" He was stuttering now, muscles tightening like I had physically hurt him. And without another glance at me, he ran back in the direction of the loft._

_But I did it for you._

**The corner where we found each other again.**

_I didn't go back to the loft after that. I stayed right there, on the corner. I don't know for how long. Days turned to weeks, weeks turned to months, I lost count. _

_Collins came around yelling at me, screaming at me, telling me to go back to Roger, but I was stubborn. I told him plain and simple that he couldn't make me, and that Roger didn't want me, he never would. _

_Angel tried a few times, telling me what I did was stupid, but that I had the biggest heart of anyone she'd ever met. I told her obviously not, or else I could have helped more._

_Mimi came back, in tears, yelling at me to get my ass back to the loft and to fucking apologize to Roger. I told her quietly that I had nothing to be sorry for. Everything I had done was for him, and if he didn't want it, want me, then there was nothing more to be said._

_Maureen even stopped by a handful of times, with Joanne, telling me that even if I didn't, couldn't, go back to the loft, that I was welcome at their place. I politely declined, telling them that I would be an inconvenience, and that I was used to living on my own. I joked to them, telling them that the corner was like the loft, only without the stairs and couch, which, really it was. We had no heat, the corner had no heat. We had no privacy, with the amount of people barging in and letting themselves in, and I had no privacy here. _

_The only thing missing was Roger._

_I changed my routes entirely. When I had to go to the drugstore, scrounge around, look for food, I knew which ways to go that avoided Roger and the rest. If they wanted to see me, they could find me. I was not risking a chance meeting on the sidewalk, where I was emotionally unprepared, when I wasn't detached, ready to be strong._

_Collins told me that Roger was too stubborn to come see me himself, that he would refuse to admit he had been in the wrong. Angel said that both of us had been in the wrong, and that we should both accept it and move on. Mimi said that he'd hauled himself back up in the loft and refused to come out. I said that it was his own fault, and while it was breaking my heart, I couldn't go back to him._

_It was a year later, that he found me again._

_It was late, close to midnight, and I was turning in. My Corner was the only place I felt comfortable sleeping in the city. I had sat down against the wall and closed my eyes when I heard footsteps approaching. I thought nothing of it, until they stopped rear me, and I grew worried. Standing up and opening them, I found myself face to face with Roger. Bracing myself, I stood still for a long moment, eyes locking with his._

_He looked different. Not exceedingly different, but enough for someone to notice. His hair was longer, his eyes had dark circles under them, he was wearing a new jacket, and he looked like he was about to cry. Self consciously, I ran a hand through my hair, which had gotten longer as well, I hadn't noticed. _

_He took a step towards me, and I backed up once, into the wall, and then he broke down._

_Everything turned back to how it was a year ago. Roger was in pain, Roger was crying, I had to comfort him. I wrapped my arms around his broad shoulders, rubbing in small circular motions on his back, whispering comforting things in his ear._

_"You're…" He sniffed, and I leaned into him, still whispering. "You're an idiot." He sobbed quietly, still holding onto me. I began crying as well, my tears more qubdued, quieter. _

_And then all of a sudden, Roger was comforting me, I was leaning onto him, holding on for dear life, and he was helping, telling me that everything would be alright._

_"You're going to stop..this… and come back to the loft with me." He whispered quietly into my hair, and I nodded, tears of joy pouring down my cheeks. He was here, I wasn't dreaming this, he was here, and he still loved me, still wanted me. And I still loved him, still needed him._

_And he was ok with that._

**So it was at My Corner where everything came full circle. **

**They called it my Corner.**

**They always have and always will.**


End file.
